Our Blog: Employment Law

We’re coming in late with this Workplace Week in Review but only because there was so much news to sift through!

First, Happy Martin Luther King Day.  I hope everyone is at home, resting and reflecting on Dr. King’s teachings.  One of my favorites, which I try to remember during trying times, is in the image above.

If you read any news …

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Biden to Sign Law Ending Mandatory Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Cases

Congress recently passed the “Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021” (H.R. 4445).  This bill received increasingly rare bipartisan support and we expect President Biden to sign it into law any day.

Let’s take a quick look at what this law does and what it means …

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Despite Supreme Court’s ruling, employers may still develop their own vaccine mandates.

On January 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked OSHA from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandate for employers with 100 or more workers.  Read below to see what this means for employers and employees.

The ETS initially required employers with 100 or more employees to develop mandatory vaccination …

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Federal Court Decides Covid-19 is Not a “Transitory and Minor” Disability Exempted from ADA protections
What happens if fired for testing positive for COVID

First, trust that you are not alone in worrying about this.  Employment lawyers have been wondering the same thing.  Since the expiration of the FFCRA last December, there has been nothing explicitly prohibiting termination of a Covid positive …

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Chicago Passes COVID-19 Anti-Retaliation Ordinance

When COVID first hit, the federal government passed the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act (“FFCRA”). The FFCRA provided all kinds of protections for employees, including paid and protected leave for those diagnosed, quarantining and/or caring for someone diagnosed or quarantining for COVID. Unfortunately, the FFCRA expired in December of 2020 and Congress did not bother to …

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With the recent rollouts of the first available vaccines, one of the questions we have heard a lot of lately is: Can my employer require me to get the COVID-19 vaccine?

Late last month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) released updated guidance on the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees related to the COVID-19 vaccine. You might remember this …

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In these tough times, most of what we are seeing in our newspapers and news feeds is negative and dark.  I won’t repeat the staggering numbers and scary predictions here because we’ve all seen them.  Instead, I wanted to take this opportunity to share some uplifting news and to report on the remarkable steps some members of the business community …

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For those bored at home and needing a little “light” reading, the EEOC has issued Covid-19 guidance for employees and has also updated its 2009 Pandemic in the Workplace Guidance (who knew there was such guidance?)  These two pieces basically explain how the EEOC anticipates the Americans with Disabilities Act applying to Covid-19 situations in the workplace and answers some …

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Today, August 22, 2019 marks Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. Why does such a day exist? It’s not just another day on the calendar to be lost among the litany of National Siblings Day, National Ice Cream Day or the like.  Black Women’s Equal Pay Day represents the number of days in 2019 that black women in America have had …

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More great news for workers in Illinois! Last week, Illinois passed legislation which prohibits employers from asking applicants about their pay history during the hiring process. The No Salary History law is an important step in closing the racial and gender wage gaps.

Before this law, employers could ask an applicant questions about their salary history. This helped to perpetuate lower …

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